


The IT Crowd

by witling



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Banter, Bickering, Blow Jobs, But then so is Arthur sometimes, Clueless as always, Eames is a prick, Emotional Baggage, If so I may have it, Is there such a thing as a kink for digital illiteracy?, Laptop sabotage, M/M, Mezcal, Mocking, Outdated office equipment, Poor Arthur, Recreational Drug Use, So I guess it works out, Tequila, but that goes without saying, carnitas, office politics, pathetic adulthoods, pathetic childhoods, tag abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:12:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witling/pseuds/witling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is unshaven, a little heavy, a little oily, and wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the throat, exposing a lick of dark chest hair.  Arthur feels a hot, surging desire to punch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The IT Crowd

As soon as the client stops dithering and comes to terms on a decent figure, Arthur sends out his offer emails. In each of them he specifies that this will be a networked job. The client has given them use of a secure warehouse, where they’ll set up a LAN and share digital files, ergo a laptop is _expected_. It’s the wave of the future.

Eames isn’t big on being told what to do, and to Arthur’s knowledge has never used a computer on any job, ever. It therefore seems likely that he’ll arrive without even a ballpoint pen. Instead he turns up lugging some hoary off-brand beast that weighs about twelve pounds and has square corners and a raked eighties-style relief design on the top. Liliane, their chemist and computer tech, watches him heave it out of his bag and drop it onto her desk, and says very faintly, "Oh...” It has coffee rings on its case, a kinked power cord with copper wires showing through, and a battery compartment cover that clearly belongs to another model, but is jammed in place and held with a few squares of duct tape. 

Arthur, working at his desk on his own laptop--Samsung Series 9, with additional RAM and an upgraded hard drive--frowns.

"Okay,” Liliane says gamely, taking tentative possession of the thing. "I’ll just...take a look.”

"Thanks,” Eames says, with apparent unconcern. He goes off to hog a spot by the windows, one of the last ones where the light is decent, and to leaf through some paper documents he’s also brought with him. If he notices the look Arthur sends his way, he ignores it.

Half an hour later, Arthur uploads a file to the shared directory and says to the room at large, "Last year’s Q4 financials up now, just the cash flow. And version B schematics.”

"Fucking-A,” says Elliott, clicking with his nose practically against his screen.

Arthur gets up from his desk, stretches, then walks over to where Liliane is sitting with her chin in her hand, tapping desultorily at the keys of Eames’s monster machine. From what Arthur can tell from the screen, she’s in BIOS. There’s a long string of curt, hostile responses marching up the page, in reply to the commands she’s typing in.

"How’s it going?”

"Oh,” she says. "You know. Just finding every virus ever known.” She turns and looks at him. "It’s kind of impressive, actually. It’s like a virus museum. He has Black Hat on here. Nobody has Black Hat. It’s from 2006. And it was for demonstration purposes only.”

Arthur leans over her shoulder to examine the screen. He’s no computer tech, but he can tell something isn’t right. The cursor sits blinking next to a thicket of characters so dense and imposing, so full of diacritics and punctuation, that it looks like a joke. In the middle of the page, as a response to one of liliana’s efforts, is a series of early-era emoticons. A smiley face, a frowny face. What looks like it’s supposed to be an erect penis. A cat face.

As he stares at it, the hard drive lets out a gritty-sounding whine and starts to vent hot air.

Arthur raises his gaze over the top of the screen and stares at Eames, who happens to be sitting dead straight ahead, in a beam of golden sunlight. Eames, engrossed in whatever he’s reading, licks his finger and turns a page. 

"This can’t go on the network,” Liliane says. "This needs to be drilled to pieces and thrown in the river.”

Arthur takes a deep breath and stands up. "Okay, thanks. I’ll...talk to him.”

As he walks over to where Eames is sitting, he hears the laptop expire with a grunt. Liliane closes the lid, and he feels her relief as a palpable note in the air.

"Hey,” he says, when he gets to Eames’s chair. Eames looks up and smiles, and Arthur knows right away that he hasn’t been engrossed, he’s been listening to everything they’ve said. His expression is earnest, which is what gives him away. He’s unshaven, a little heavy, a little oily, and wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the throat, exposing a lick of dark chest hair. Arthur feels a hot, surging desire to punch him.

"Hello,” Eames says, his eyes steady on Arthur’s face. Another giveaway, seeming to be giving his full attention. He never does that. "Good to see you, Arthur.”

"Your computer has vd,” Arthur says. "Get a new one.”

Eames’s eyebrows rise a fraction, innocent and wounded. "It’s the one I have. I’ve had it since...” He cranes his neck around and looks past Arthur’s body to Liliane’s desk. "I can’t remember now. It’s always worked fine.”

"Are you working this job?” Arthur asks. He’s tired and sore, he’s already been here for five days bickering with the client, getting the warehouse set up, starting to sketch out a plan. He’s spent the last three hours clicking and scrolling through financial minutiae, and if he hadn’t needed a forge who could handle a gun as well as a skin, he would never have hired Eames. Never.

"Well,” Eames says slowly, his eyes still locked to Arthur’s face, "I think so. I’m here, after all.”

"I told you we’d be sharing data. If you can’t do that, you’re not working this job.”

"I can look on yours, can’t I?”

"No. Go buy a new computer.” Arthur turns to go back to his desk, and because he can feel Eames staring at his ass, he adds, "Don’t take it out of the box, just give it to Liliane.”

"Poor little computer,” Eames says sadly, and from the corner of his eye, Arthur catches Liliane giving the monster machine a pitying look.

 

 

Eames goes out and comes back several hours later, lugging a plastic bag from Best Buy. 

"Don’t open it,” Arthur reminds him, the minute he walks through the door. "It’s not yours yet, it’s yours after the job is done. Until then, you’re borrowing it from Liliane.”

"Bossy,” Eames says, but he takes the bag to Liliane and puts it on the floor at her feet. "Can I have the old one back?”

"It’s completely fucked,” she says gently. "You know that, right? It has no memory and the fan is dead and the battery leaks and it would be illegal to connect it to any network in the world. And there’s peanut butter in the keyboard.”

"It’s all right,” Eames says, gathering the laptop up off the edge of her desk and slipping it under his arm. "I’ll just put it away somewhere.”

Arthur, hunched over his screen, can’t help but notice that there’s a general atmosphere of sympathy in the room, with Eames as its focus. Or maybe Eames’s laptop, he’s not sure. Either way, he doesn’t share in it.

 

"Okay,” Liliane says to Eames the next morning, bright and early. "Here’s your new laptop.”

"Not his,” Arthur intones from his desk. 

"Here’s the laptop you’re going to use,” Liliane revises. "Look, the power button is here--no, it’s already on, don’t push it. It has a touchpad instead of a mouse, so that may take some getting used to. And the battery life is up here, so you can see when to plug it in. All right?” 

Arthur glances over. Liliane has stepped back, and Eames is studying the new computer with a thoughtful expression.

"Fine thanks,” he says, belatedly, when he realizes Liliane is still standing over him. 

"Network drive is here,” Liliane says, pointing to something on the screen. "Mapped to P. You’ve got a directory here, this is the shared folder we’re all using, I set us up for email, here’s your inbox. All set?” She’s already turning away, heading back to her desk. 

Eames raises a hand in thanks, his attention fixed on the screen. As Arthur watches, he rubs his finger over the touchpad, then starts and glances quickly at Liliane’s departing back. Arthur feels a headache coming on.

"Don’t worry,” Liliane says quietly, as she passes Arthur’s desk. "I only gave him the basics. He can’t do too much damage.”

Arthur nods and goes back to transcribing the relevant points from the typescript bankers’ files on his desk. Behind him, he hears a long pause, then the laborious, erratic sound of two fingers typing, then a muttered curse.

His headache worsens.

 

The next day Eames carries the new laptop back to Liliane’s desk. "It’s broken,” he tells her, depositing it on a stack of papers. "Should I take it back?”

Liliane gives him a wary look, then opens the machine. "Wow,” she says. "Okay, uh. Wow. You’ve got some interesting settings here. Did you mean for the contrast to be like that?”

Eames looks over her shoulder. "It just went that way.”

"And did you know you have all these applications running?” She starts to click, frowning. "Where did you get these? What _is_ that?” She leans close, frowning. "Why do you have so many browser icons? Oh my god, Netscape _Navigator_?”

"I don’t know,” Eames says. "It was just like that.”

"Oh my god,” Liliane says. Arthur buries his head in his hands. "Oh, wow.” He presses hard on his temples with his thumbs, where he can feel the blood drumming. "Did you click one of those magical weird old-wives’-tale secret weight loss ads?”

"No,” Eames says. "But there was this dancing foetus--”

"Oh God,” Liliane says again. "Has this thing been spawning new windows _all night_?”

"So it’s broken,” Eames says. "I should take it back.”

“Arthur,” Liliane says, in a tone of hopeless entreaty.

"Go sit down,” Arthur says, swiveling on his chair. He points at Eames’s desk. Eames looks at him, still bent over Liliane’s shoulder.

"I’m a bit busy at the moment, Arthur--”

"Go. Sit. Down,” Arthur says again, gritting it out. There must be something about his voice or face that convinces Eames he’s serious, because after a moment Eames straightens, gives Liliane an apologetic smile, and slopes off to his chair in the sun. 

Arthur watches him settle, one big leg crossed over the other at the knee, showing his red socks and a centimeter of his hairy leg. He drags his folder of hard-copy photographs across the table, picks up a pencil, and starts making notes. Arthur just stares at him. At his stupid slicked-down hair, his big-knuckled hands and his terrible, wrinkled jacket, which is stretched tight across his bulky shoulders. Eames is built like a gorilla. That’s what he is, a fucking gorilla. He shouldn’t be working a job like this, he should be out somewhere ripping off a back-alley poker game or scalping tickets to a match.

But he’s a forge, Arthur reminds himself. A very good forge. 

He becomes suddenly aware that he’s standing stock-still in the middle of the room, staring at Eames. And that everyone else is looking at him. It’s quiet.

Eames raises his head at the silence, looks around, and sees Arthur. His expression is earnest and direct.

"Did you need something?” he asks. 

Arthur’s face is hot. His hands are damp. "No,” he says. "I’m fine.” 

Instead of going back to his computer, where he still has to shape three pages of meeting notes into a coherent plan for the extraction, he walks out of the room, out of the building, out into the cool sunny morning where he can get a few minutes by himself to breathe.

 

"Okay,” Liliane says, putting the laptop down on Eames’s desk. "Here are the things you’re not allowed to do. Number one: click on anything.”

Eames, pushed back in his chair to give her space, nods as if this is a reasonable restriction.

"Number two: delete anything. Number three: change settings.”

"Am I allowed to type?” he asks humbly. 

"Yes. But no emails to anyone except the people in this room. I’ve loaded the contacts for you here.” She steps back and pats him on the shoulder. "Just follow those rules, and you should be good to go.”

"Thanks much,” he says. 

Arthur sits waiting for whatever’s going to come next. The room is quiet except for the sounds of keyboards clicking, papers shuffling. Faintly, Elliott’s music leaks through his headphones. After a few minutes Arthur takes a deep breath, flexes his lower back, and tells himself to calm down. He’s been working too much lately, getting tired and irritable. It’s not worth getting worked up over Eames’s digital illiteracy. Or anything else.

The day goes by smoothly. At seven o’clock Arthur takes orders on the back of an envelope and picks up Italian. They eat companionably enough, to a background of Lyle Mays from Elliott’s speakers. Liliane mentions a boyfriend in Denver, which renders Elliott visibly crestfallen until Eames launches into a long, erratic, admittedly-slightly-amusing story about coming down with stomach flu and altitude sickness simultaneously in the mile-high city, and having to go under for an extraction anyway.

"And that was it for the shirt,” he says sadly, ruminating his spaghetti Bolognese. "Best shirt I had, and I burnt it in a rubbish bin.”

"I had to mercy-kill my favorite sweater when I was fifteen,” Elliott says. "My sister got pissed and threw bleach at me. I looked like a zebra.”

"Ruined a very good pair of heels,” Liliane says, "walking six miles home from a job that went tits-up in Prague.”

There’s a pause, and Arthur realizes they’re all looking at him. He shrugs. 

"Come on,” Elliott says. "You’ve ruined something at least once in your life.”

"I don’t know,” Liliane says. "He’s pretty neat.”

"I just can’t think of anything,” Arthur says. He gets up to take his empty box and plastic fork to the trash.

"Not even a pair of shoes?” Elliott calls after him.

"Not even a dickey?” Liliane asks.

Arthur tosses his stuff and rinses his hands in the sink. He honestly can’t think of any beloved article of clothing he’s had and lost. Maybe that’s weird. Everyone else seems to have plenty of stories. But clothes are just clothes. They’re important, they matter, he cares about looking right. But they’re not something he can get worked up about.

"Sorry,” he says, coming back with a smile. "Can’t think of anything right now.”

"Spoilsport,” Liliane says. Then, as she pours herself another glass of wine, she says, "Tell us something else then.”

Arthur smiles to deflect, but the silence just draws out. Elliott and Liliane sit looking at him. Eames looks down into his box, twirling his fork.

"Tell us something,” Liliane says again. "Anything. It doesn’t have to be personal.”

"What do you want me to tell you?” He’s lost the smile. Suddenly everything he can think of to say feels bizarrely intimate. "I take my coffee black.” It feels like a lame joke, the way it comes out.

"We know that,” Liliane says. "Just tell us something about yourself. Do you know, I’ve worked with you three times now and I don’t even know if you’re married?”

Arthur holds up his left hand to show the bare fingers. 

"Oh, for God’s sake.” She rolls her eyes and gets up, carrying her empty box to the trash. "Forget it, let’s just get back to work.”

The mood is subdued, after that. Elliott puts his headphones back on, and Liliane sits typing rapid-fire as usual. Eames drifts away to his chair by the window and sits studying photographs with the laptop open beside him, casting a faint bluish glow.

Arthur goes back to reconciling expense reports. His eyes feel gritty, and he’s starting another headache. When he gets up to make a half pot of coffee, Liliane follows him.

"I’m sorry,” she says quietly. "That was dumb, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

He shakes his head and smiles, to show that it’s no big deal. "Not married, for what it’s worth.”

"And it would be your own business if you were.” She shrugs. "I talk too much when I drink.”

"I got stabbed in a Simon Spurr waistcoat,” he tells her. "Messed it up completely.”

"Oh.” The look she gives him is not what he expected; it’s soft, almost worried. "I’m sorry. Did...did it hurt?”

He checks to see if she’s joking--she isn’t. "Yes,” he says. "Yeah, it hurt.”

"I’m sorry,” she says again. Then she puts her hand on his arm, so lightly that he almost can’t feel it. She looks like she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t. She pats his arm and goes back to her desk instead.

He doesn’t need to look to see that Eames watching him, because of course Eames is watching him. Eames never misses things that aren’t his business. Arthur goes back to washing out the coffee pot, ignoring the quiet that’s fallen over the room.

 

The next morning they meet, and it comes to light that Eames hasn’t checked a single one of his emails--hasn’t even opened his email. Doesn’t even realize he has email, despite the fact that Liliane has told him several times. 

Arthur shouts at him. Eames sits there and takes it. 

They postpone the meeting until Eames has read his email and caught up on the hours of work they sent him yesterday.

Arthur sits at his desk with his head throbbing, and thinks about getting stabbed. It had hurt worse than anything else that had ever happened to him. And it had horrified him, feeling the hot blood pour down his side and over his trousers and down his trouser leg and into his shoe. He thought he might die, he thought he might have a lacerated liver, a punctured stomach. They were in Jakarta, where a hangnail could practically kill you if it got infected. The knife probably wasn’t even clean, he remembers telling Cobb, after the morphine took hold and he was dizzy with it, slurring and laughing.

Thinking about it now, he feels a twinge of something like nostalgia. Then he wonders about himself, if he’s a masochist or something. Who the hell feels nostalgic about getting stabbed?

He takes ibuprofen and a few deep breaths, then gets up and goes over to Eames’s desk. Eames is hunched forward over the laptop, peering at the screen and scribbling away at a pad on the table beside it. It looks like he’s transcribing his email. Arthur takes another deep breath.

"Sorry,” he says. "I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m a little...wound up, I guess.”

Without taking his eyes from the screen, Eames says, "Not to worry.”

"If you really can’t work with this setup--” Arthur says, and leaves it hanging there. 

Eames stops writing and twirls the pencil in his fingers. Arthur glances--he can’t help it. Eames has a broken finger on that hand--the little one. It sticks out at an angle, and doesn’t bend when he makes a fist. He’s never said how it happened.

"I’m all right,” Eames says, and this time there’s something different about his tone. He sounds as if he’s stopped faking, on some level. As if now he’s actually taking this all seriously. "I’ll get it done in a couple of hours, be ready to talk it over then.”

Arthur hesitates. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say--he’s already apologized. Eames sits quietly, looking at him with full attention. For once, it doesn’t feel like a con.

Arthur nods and walks back to his desk.

 

"And exit through the east-side offices,” Elliott says, pointing at the scribbled sketch on the whiteboard. "The doors will be unlocked, you can take the fire escape down.”

"I’m going to need a minute or two with the files before the kick,” Arthur says. He turns to Eames, who’s sitting to the side. "Can you keep them off me long enough for me to read through it all?”

"You’re a quick reader,” Eames says, studying the board. "I think I can do that.”

"If you can’t we’re all going home broke,” Liliane says. "Do you want me to try more sedation?”

"No,” Arthur says. The mark’s sixty-two, with a cardiac history. "We’ll keep it quick, it should be straightforward.”

"Famous last words,” Elliott mutters.

Liliane checks her watch. "Tomorrow at seven,” she says, confirming. They all look at the whiteboard, where the schedule is meticulously outlined in two-minute intervals, dreamtime. The start time is seven am. "My God, I always hate the night before. I get clammy.”

"If you want to go out...” Elliott ventures, looking hopeful.

"I always Skype with Mark before a job,” she says. Elliott deflates again. "My part’s all done, right?”

Arthur nods, and she goes back to her desk and starts closing up. Elliott mopes around for a bit, but after Liliana leaves he puts his laptop into his bag too.

"If anyone wants me,” he says, "I’ll be alone in my hotel room, jerking off to overpriced porn.”

"That’s the spirit,” says Eames. 

Arthur turns back to the whiteboard, going over the schedule one more time. They take the mark at six-thirty, get him to the job site for seven, start the PASIV at seven sharp, first scenario is the country club where Eames will play the grandson--

"We’re finished early,” Eames says, behind him. Arthur turns, surprised. Eames is leaning against Arthur’s desk, his arms crossed and his hands tucked into his armpits. "Time for dinner?”

"Sure,” Arthur says. "Go ahead.” Eames tilts his head, and Arthur realizes it was an invitation. "Sorry, no, I’m going to--” He’s caught without an excuse. He’s going to eat a sandwich, drink a beer, and leave the television on mute all night in his hotel room while he goes over the plans on paper again. 

"Come to dinner,” Eames says. "I promise it won’t take long. You can go straight back to ticking off lists after.”

"I need to get some things done.”

"Truce.” Eames holds out his hands. "I’ve been acting like a prick, let me make it up to you.”

Arthur pauses, recalculating. "You brought that laptop just to mess with me.”

"Well, you were so insistent in your message. And I hate using those things.”

"It’s not even yours, is it?”

"Oh fuck no, I bought it from a bloke. He fences the most worthless junk you’ve ever seen, but he sells quite good hash.”

"And this is your way of calling a truce.” Arthur puts the pen back in the ledge and fishes for his phone so he can take a photo before he wipes the board clean. "If you hadn’t told me that, I wouldn’t have known to be pissed off at you.”

"You already were pissed off at me. You called me a fucking four year-old.”

"I said you were acting like a fucking four year-old. Because you were. Seriously, you held everyone up just to make a point about not liking email?” Arthur snaps the picture and shoves the phone away, then starts erasing the board in fast, hard swipes. "That’s some fucking four-year old shit.”

"I apologized. And I’m apologizing again now. I’ve behaved badly, I haven’t taken the job seriously enough, and I’ve been a prick to you when you were just trying to make things run right.”

Arthur tosses the eraser onto the ledge and rubs his palms together, turning toward his desk. "Apology accepted. I’ll see you tomorrow at six-thirty.”

“Arthur.” Eames is leaning on his desk for a reason, he realizes. It puts him in the way when Arthur tries to grab his case. "Let’s not fight, shall we?”

"Could you move, please?”

"Let me take you out to dinner. I promise I won’t be a prick. And you have to eat anyway.” Eames shifts to the side Arthur’s trying for, blocking him. "Really, I’d feel much better about things if you’d at least come out for a drink.”

"And why would I care what makes you feel better?” Arthur asks, but he can already feel that he’s losing. Eames just stands there, asking with his eyes, his attentive posture. Arthur thinks, _fuuuuuuuuuuuuck_.

"Okay,” he says. "A drink. One drink.”

 

They go to a place Eames says he knows, although Arthur has now decided that basically everything Eames says is a lie. When they walk in he stops short, because it’s a fucking Mexican fiesta in there, with palm trees in pots and fish nets draped from the ceiling, serapes and sombreros and a plaster burro with a coin slot in one corner, presumably for children’s rides. Eames is still fucking with him after all. 

"No, really,” Eames says, brushing past him. "It’s excellent food, I swear to God. Just try not to look around.”

Arthur debates for a few seconds. He can leave, they’re in separate cars. But the place is full and maybe Eames is right, maybe the food is good, what the hell, he’s here now. A woman appears with a pair of menus, smiling brightly, and that decides him--he’d be an asshole to walk out when she’s standing right there. He smiles back and takes a menu, and she leads them to a booth near the back.

Sliding into his seat, he says, "I thought we were going for a drink.”

"The margaritas are decent,” Eames says. "But really, the tacos. You should try them.”

Arthur takes a deep breath and remembers that it’s early, he can eat and get back to his room, and still have hours to work. "Pacifico,” he says to the waitress hovering over them. "And tacos, I guess.”

"Mezcal,” says Eames, sliding the menus back to her across the table. "And carnitas tacos, for both of us. Thanks.” When she goes he lays his hands flat on the table and looks at Arthur. "Feeling all right about the job?”

"Fine,” Arthur says. "And we’re in a public place.”

Eames nods, looking away across the crowded room. "So, not married,” he says after a minute. "And black coffee.”

"We can talk politics,” Arthur says. "Or baseball.”

"No idea how to do either of those.”

"I say the Orioles are looking good, you say you like the Dodgers.” The waitress passes by, setting down their dirnks with a smile. "That’s pretty much how it goes, I think.”

"When were you stabbed?” Eames asks, taking the lime from the edge of his glass and sucking on it. Arthur’s eyes are drawn to his broken little finger, to his ridiculous lips, the scruff of beard on his chin, the fucked-up English teeth he’s got--and despite everything, all his frustration and resentment and general ire, he feels heat in his groin. He looks away, knowing that Eames saw it.

"Public place,” he says. He drinks his beer. It’s cold and bracing, it helps a little.

"Which is why,” Eames says, licking lime juice from his thumb, "I’m not asking you who did it. I’m just asking you when it happened. Getting stabbed’s not a crime. Probably half the people in here have been stabbed at least once.” 

"Have you?”

"Twice,” Eames says cheerfully. "Once when I was nine, by my sister, with the pinking shears. Then about eight years ago, when I was young and stupid, and got into fights in alleys.”

Arthur can’t stop himself from looking back at Eames’s hand, cradling the shot glass. "Is that where you broke you finger?”

"No, that’s another story. But my question was, when were you stabbed?” Eames raises the glass but doesn’t drink--instead, he smells the liquor, and smiles.

"Four years ago,” Arthur says. "In Jakarta, with Cobb. It was...business-related.”

"Hit any vitals?”

"No. I got lucky.” Arthur drinks. "Plenty of stitches, though.”

Eames winces. "Must be a nice scar.” He raises the glass and smiles through it. "Maybe someday you’ll let me see it.”

As Eames drinks, Arthur shakes his head and looks away across the room. Eames is Eames. Always and forever. 

The waitress is carrying a tray their way--they clear room and she sets it down, a big plate of soft flour tacos filled with sizzling meat. 

"Fantastic,” Eames says. "Thanks so much.” She leaves, and they fall on it.

Arthur has to admit, it’s good food. Better than good--it’s great. He doesn’t eat much on jobs, he mostly survives on coffee and take-out. The tacos are messy and spicy and scalding hot. Suddenly he can see why the place is so full.

Eames nudges the salsa roja bottle his way. "If I tell you how I broke my finger,” he says, "What wil you tell me?”

Arthur shrugs, focused on the food. "What do you want to know?”

Eames seems to give it some thought. "Tell me something about growing up. Wherever you did it.”

"I was hatched,” Arthur says, with a laugh. "Sure, tell me about the finger.”

"Well,” Eames says, in the tone of a man settling in to tell a lengthy tale, "First of all, you should know it happened under the least romantic, heroic circumstances possible.”

"I’m shocked.”

"When I was a younger man, still rough around the edges, not like I am now, I had a certain friend, shall we say, with bad habits. Some involving horses and money. My friend tended to lose large quantities of cash, and then there was always a crisis to scramble some up to pay the people who had to be paid. Before knees were broken.”

The waitress passes, and he holds up his empty glass, the little finger sticking out demurely.

"Why am I not surprised by this story so far?” Arthur asks, rhetorically. When Eames raises an eyebrow at him, he shakes his head. "Sorry, keep going.”

"Well, I was twenty years old and obviously an idiot, I didn’t know the first thing about taking precautions. One day my friend missed a payment and scarpered, but the gentlemen who’d lent the money had my address. So they turned up at two o’clock in the morning with truncheons, and we had a lovely time. Ah, thanks.” He takes a new glass from the waitress, and lifts it to Arthur. "Cheers.”

Arthur holds his beer, unsmiling.

"Anyway,” Eames says, picking a piece of cabbage from his taco, "my fingers actually made it through that adventure unbroken. It was the next day, when I scraped myself up off the floor and went to find my friend, that I skipped the turnstile in the tube and was tackled to the ground by a fifteen year-old Boy Scout who saw me do it.” He holds up the hand, smiling. "Never set right, hasn’t bent properly since.”

Arthur stares at Eames’s finger, until Eames drops his hand and wipes it on a napkin. "Come on,” he says. "It’s funny, isn’t it?”

"I guess.” Arthur drinks again--he’s almost finished the bottle, and when the waitress passes he catches her eye and signals for another. "What happened to your friend?”

"Nothing good.” Eames sucks his teeth. "All right, your turn. Something decent about growing up.”

"That’s kind of a hard story to follow.”

"Well, think of a good one.” Eames sits chewing, gazing around the room. Watching him, Arthur feels an upswell of intense, confused emotion. He’s just tired. This is Eames, they’re just grabbing a quick bite the night before a job. There’s no reason to invest it with any extra meaning.

"I don’t--” he starts to say, and then his phone buzzes. He pulls it out and checks it. It’s a text, just one line, from the client’s number.

_Job cancelled. Will contact tomorrow to settle terms._

He stares at it. Eames says, "Something wrong?”

Arthur takes a deep breath, then puts the phone on the table and turns it so Eames can read the message. Eames reads it, then sets his glass down and sits back, blowing out air. 

They sit there for a few minutes in silence. Around them, people laugh and chatter.

"It was always a possibility,” Arthur says. "If they got the contract signed another way. But Jesus, the night before--i guess I assumed...”

"There’s a retainer?” Eames asks. Arthur nods. "And a kill fee?”

"Yeah.”

They both know that those will cover costs, but not much more. Arthur sits staring at nothing, thinking blankly of the last week of labor. Plus all the contacts he’s pulled, the extra hours he spent researching the job before he took it, the capital he stands to lose with Liliane and Elliott and probably Eames. They all could be doing other jobs right now. It’s not his fault the client bailed, but it’s still a cloud over the job. Over him.

"I have to let Elliott and Liliane know,” he says, picking up his phone. Eames nods and doesn’t try to follow when he slips out and heads for the door. He’ll call instead of texting. It’s a small courtesy, but it’s what he can offer.

Elliott is mute, then pissed off--at the client, not at Arthur. Arthur listens to him rage for a minute, then says, "I have to call Liliane next.”

She doesn’t pick up. He leaves her a to-the-point message, and an apology.

When he goes back into the restaurant, Eames is settling the bill. Arthur reaches for his wallet but Eames waves him off. They walk outside, where their cars are parked on separate sides of the lot.

"So?” Eames stands watching Arthur, his hands in his pockets. "What next?”

"I’ll go back to the warehouse,” Arthur says, "And start clearing it out.” He’s already been thinking it through, what needs to happen to close things out right. "I was going to do it tomorrow anyway, i’ll just do it now. And I’ll contact everyone when I know the distribution for the fees.”

Eames stands there studying him, as if Arthur’s failed to say something important. Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose. His temples are throbbing again. 

"Fuck,” he says quietly.

"Leave the warehouse,” Eames says. "You were going to do it tomorrow, do it tomorrow.”

"There’s no point waiting.”

"It’s depressing, do it during the day at least.”

“Eames, I’m going to be depressed no matter what I do tonight. Do you know how much work just got flushed?”

"I’ve got some idea, yeah. But it’s flushed now, so fuck it. Come back to mine and have a drink.”

Arthur says nothing. Ordinarily this is the moment when he’d either shut Eames down or smile and play along, both of them knowing it will never go anywhere. Eames is Eames, forever and always. But right now Arthur doesn’t have the energy to do any of that.

"It’s not your fault,” Eames says. "It happens to everyone who runs jobs, sooner or later. I’ve been sent home early plenty of times.”

“Yeah.”

"All right, so come back and have a drink, and cry your tears.”

"I should go.” Arthur takes a deep breath. "Okay, sure. What the hell.”

"Splendid,” Eames says. "I’m at the Fairmont, under Hubert Priffen, Esquire.”

 

Arthur takes a roundabout route, partly to give himself some time alone, partly because he’s not sure he really wants to go. He’s not sure what he’s agreed to, exactly. It’s been a strange job, a strange night. Everything feels a little unhinged.

Halfway there he decides to bail, and takes out his phone to text Eames. Then he just lets it sit there on his leg while he drives. His mouth tastes hot, his fingers are sticky with lime juice. 

He lets the valet take his car, and asks at the desk for Mr. Priffen’s room. 

Eames opens the door jacketless, his gorilla torso stretching the shoulder seams of his shirt. Behind him, the television blares nonsense and the room is too bright, all the lights turned on.

"Tequila,” Eames says, lifting a bottle out of a paper bag as he kicks the door closed. "In keeping with the themes of the evening.”

"Which are?”

"Mexico, and tragedy.” Eames tosses the bag toward the trash can, missing it, and unscrews the bottle cap. "Tequila is well known as the best liquor for tragic circumstances.”

"Is there any ice?” Arthur crosses the room--surprisingly neat, although there’s a bent Dick Francis paperback on the night table, and a pile of crumpled bills and change on the desk. "Warm tequila sounds pretty bad.”

"Make yourself at home,” Eames says, "while I get ice.”

Arthur takes one of the armchairs and looks around. There’s nothing much to show that this is Eames’s room--no file folders, no photographs or drifts of scribbled notes. All that’s in the safe, probably. The bed is neatly made, the water glasses still upended on the counter. The television brays laughter at him. He finds the remote and kills it.

When Eames comes back with ice, he doesn’t seem to notice that the television’s off. He pours a healthy serving into two glasses and carries them to where Arthur is sitting. "Chin chin,” he says, holding one out.

Arthur takes it and they drink. It’s good. God knows where Eames managed to buy top-shelf tequila on short notice.

"Well,” Eames says, settling in the other chair and toeing off his shoes one at a time, "Here’s to gainful employment, I suppose.” His socks are black with tiny red lozenges. They’re actually not bad.

Arthur slumps back, lets his suit jacket fall open, lets his head fall back onto the chair. He can feel Eames looking at him, but he doesn’t really care. Eames is Eames. With his history of sketchy friendships, love affairs gone wrong, back-alley fights and beatings with truncheons. If he wants to look, let him.

"Feeling all right?” Eames asks, and Arthur nods, then shrugs. "Good. I’m going to smoke some hash, and you’re welcome to join me.”

"Oh Jesus,” Arthur says. He knows already that he’s going to say yes. Because Eames is right, if he’s going to be depressed no matter what he does tonight, he might as well. He hasn’t smoked in ages. He almost never does it, because of the Somnacin--but there’s no job tomorrow, no actual dream work scheduled for at least two weeks, and that means he can probably afford it.

He hears the click of a lighter, and looks up to see Eames casually lighting a joint in his chair.

"You can’t do it in here,” Arthur says. "Go out on the balcony, you idiot.”

"Thought I was forgetting something,” Eames says. "Come on, then.”

They go out onto the tiny balcony, into the cold night air. Eames passes the joint, and Arthur takes it with a kind of internal shrug at himself. _What the fuck_. He takes a hit, tastes the tarry sweetness of the smoke and the slight dampness on the paper, where Eames’s mouth has been. 

"Look at you,” Eames says, sounding pleased. "Getting crunk on my balcony.”

"You offered.”

"I’m not complaining.” Eames takes the joint back and inhales deeply. "So, childhood memory. Something about growing up. You owe me a story.”

"I can’t think of anything.”

Eames says nothing. 

"I’m thinking,” Arthur says. "Hang on.”

They drink tequila and smoke the joint down to a roach, which Eames offers and Arthur refuses. Eames flicks it out into the air, a tiny orange spark falling into darkness. The lights of the city are particularly beautiful, laid out in their orderly rows. The night is a particularly rich and velvety black. Even the cold feels good, refreshing. Arthur drinks a little more of the gentle, smoky tequila and thinks that Eames might not be a moron after all. 

"We’re not locked out, are we?” Eames asks. Arthur tries the door, shows that it slides open. "Good.” Eames sinks down to his heels, then sits on the balcony floor with a grunt. "Hate to wake up out here tomorrow morning.”

"What time is it?” Arthur checks his own watch, even as Eames is finding his. "How is it only eleven?”

"Feels like four in the morning,” Eames says. "You can stay over if you want.”

"And risk my virtue?” Arthur laughs. "I don’t know, I might be safer driving.”

“ _Your_ virtue. What about mine? No one ever worries about my virtue.”

"Someone probably did,” Arthur says. "Once upon a time.” That strikes him as melancholy, then possibly cruel, then mildly hilarious. He tries to turn his laugh into a cough.

Eames watches him with a bemused smile. In the light through the sliding glass door, he looks flushed and heavy, his eyes a little bloodshot, his lips chapped and pink. "You’re stoned.”

"No kidding.” Arthur starts laughing again, and has to turn away and hide his face in his elbow before he can get it under control. "Oh, shiiiit,” he says, wiping his eyes. "That...is good hash.”

"Told you. The hash is decent, everything else is horrible.”

"I can’t believe you brought that laptop,” Arthur says. "And made Liliane _work_ on it.” 

"Well--” Eames says, in a serious tone, then cracks up. "Well, fuck, it seemed like a good idea--” 

"And oh Jesus,” Arthur says, gasping for air. "Netscape Navigator, oh my God--”

"Wait,” Eames says. "Wait, what? What’s--what’s wrong with--?”

Arthur sprains something in his stomach, dying of hilarity. 

When he finally pulls himself together, he’s flushed and giddy. He rolls the side of the tequila glass over his forehead to cool it, then notices Eames watching him with a strange expression. "What?”

Eames narrows his eyes, then turns aside and carefully puts his own glass down. He turns back to face Arthur. "Don’t punch me,” he says, seriously.

"What?” Arthur says, but he’s already aware. Eames reaches out and puts his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. Just his hand, resting there. Arthur looks at it and doesn’t move away. Eames closes his big gorilla hand, squeezing. It feels good. Arthur lets his head fall back against the wall, and smiles.

"Don’t punch me,” Eames says again, shuffling closer. 

"Why do you think i’m going to punch you?” Arthur asks. 

"Just don’t.” Eames waits to make sure Arthur has agreed to the terms, then leans in and kisses him. Up close, he smells amazingly of hash and booze and chile-spiced meat. His skin is hot, his mouth is wet and soft, his beard scrapes Arthur’s face. Arthur makes a low sound of approval, and Eames’s other hand rubs up against the side of his face. It’s the one with the broken finger, Arthur knows. He can feel it, the tip of the crooked pinky tickling his skin. He sets his glass down and runs his hands up Eames’s back, feels the heat emanating from his skin beneath his shirt. Eames’s tongue is in his mouth, hot and wet and fucking incredible. Arthur makes another affirmative noise. Eames’s hand tightens on his jaw.

Eames draws back, and they look at each other. There are only inches between them. Eames has a dopey smile on his face, and Arthur’s sure he does too.

Then someone lets out a whoop above their heads. They both jump. Two stories above and to the left, a group of teenaged girls stands on the balcony. They start to cheer and applaud, making kissy sounds.

"Thanks,” Eames calls, waving. They whistle back. "In?” he asks Arthur, who’s already collecting his glass.

"Good night,” Arthur says to the girls, stepping through the glass door. The cheering follows him through into the room, until he closes the door on it.

Eames is walking around, clicking off lights. He’s got the bottle of tequila in one hand and the glass pinched between two fingers as if he’s forgotten they’re there. Arthur puts his own glass down and sinks into an armchair, waiting. Eames makes his way back over, stumbling over his shoes and looking affronted. When he regains his balance he turns his attention back to Arthur with a smile.

"Where were we?” he asks. "Oh, right.”

Before Arthur can move, he drops to his knees in between Arthur’s legs. Arthur feels a jolt of lust, tempered only slightly by the awareness that this might be one of the stupidest things he’s ever done. He can’t bring himself to care. He lets his legs fall open wider, and smiles down at Eames between them.

"Oh Christ,” Eames says, looking almost weary. "You’ll be the death of me, one way or another.”

"Well, if you don’t want to--”

"I didn’t say that.” Eames gets his hands on Arthur’s knees and hauls himself up between them, so he’s kneeling with his barrel chest in between Arthur’s legs. Arthur leans down accommodatingly. The kiss is hot and wet, Eames’s hands clambering clumsily over Arthur’s chest and shoulders. Arthur’s legs tighten around Eames’s torso, which makes Eames grunt lusty approval, which in turn makes Arthur’s dick spring to attention. Eames’s hand is in Arthur’s hair, gripping his skull. Arthur thinks of his big hands, big knuckles, and the little finger that stick out, strangely vulnerable in contrast. His hips slide forward, his dick shoves against Eames’s belly, and Eames grunts again.

"You’re killing me with that noise,” Arthur informs him, grabbing the back of Eames’s thick neck, feeling the blunt muscles under the skin. Eames laughs into his mouth, exhaling alcohol and heat, and Arthur thinks, _I have never been so turned on in my life_. And in almost the same moment, _What the hell am I doing?_ The phrase "career suicide” travels through his brain. He notes it and lets it pass.

Eames presses a hand down between their bodies and slides it along the length of Arthur’s dick, through his trousers, all the way back to his balls. Arthur says, _unnnhh_. Eames smiles into his mouth, their teeth hitting, and does it again, with a firmer grip.

"Ufk,” Arthur says. Then, somehow managing to unscramble it: "Fuck.”

"Let’s,” Eames says, as if they’re actually having a conversation about that, and Arthur’s brain delivers a blinding flash of that, Eames on his hands and knees on the bed, his back sweaty and flushed, his legs spread, Arthur’s dick thrusting inside him, forcing that guttural grunt from his throat--

"I’ll suck you off first, yeah?” Eames says, already prying with damp hot fingers at Arthur’s fly. Arthur has another flash: Eames’s mouth, red and slick, gliding over the head of Arthur’s cock, his face flushed, his big hand gripping the shaft, his fucked-up broken finger sticking out--

Then, even as Eames is digging a hand into his fly, his touch rough and hurried and electric, Arthur’s brain does the math and he says, "Whoah. Hang on.”

Eames stops and squints up at Arthur. His hair is ruined and his mouth looks mauled. He’s got one hand in Arthur’s trousers and a serious erection tenting his trousers. He looks terrible and hot. Like Dionysus clothed in a few extra mid-life pounds, a tight-stretched tweed jacket, and a side part. 

"What’s wrong?” Eames says, too dazed to be wary.

"Well,” Arthur says, "When I said that, I wasn’t actually thinking of _you_ fucking _me_.” 

"Oh.”

"I just didn’t want you to...for there to be any misunderstandings. I’m not--i don’t do that.”

Eames shrugs. "All right, too bad for me. Any objection to my sucking your cock?”

"None,” Arthur says, relaxing back into the chair. "And just so you know, i’m not self-hating or anything.”

"Wouldn’t care if you were,” Eames says, wriggling his hand into Arthur’s trousers. "That’s your business.”

it’s one of the better blowjobs Arthur’s had. He reflects on that, sporadically, while it’s happening. Eames is...Eames has a mouth. Arthur’s noticed that mouth many times, thought about it, furtively jerked off to those thoughts and lied to himself later about the fact. He’s thought of Eames’s messed-up teeth and ridiculous full lips, his wry little smiles. He’s thought of kissing that mouth, and he’s thought of Eames doing what he’s doing now, licking at the head of Arthur’s dick, then holding the shaft and sliding his ridiculous soft-looking mouth down over the tip, tonguing it as if he’s savoring the taste.

Arthur has to close his eyes. Then he has to dig his heels into the carpet. Then Eames gets a hand around his balls, and he has to reach down in a hurry and shove free. 

"What?” Eames says, and Arthur can’t decide if Eames is fucking with him. They’re both panting. The room suddenly feels very warm.

"What do you mean what?” Arthur says, wrapping his own hand around the base of his dick and squeezing. "Did you _want_ me to come in the first two minutes?”

Eames sits back on his heels, grinning. It’s a smug, self-satisfied grin. Arthur closes his eyes and thinks about the chemical composition of Somnacin. 

"I’m flattered,” Eames says. Arthur hears him sit back heavily on the floor, then start wrestling with his clothing. "Honestly, in all these years I never imagined--”

"Don’t,” Arthur says, holding up a hand. "Don’t do that.” He opens his eyes. Eames has his jacket off and is unbuttoning his shirt, exposing his thick chest with its scattering of chestnut hair. "Oh Jesus Christ.”

"Don’t talk about real life, you mean,” Eames says, continuing to unbutton. He’s smiling. "All right. We could talk politics. Or sports.”

"Fuck you.”

"Not likely.” Eames strips off the shirt and drops it. Then he’s sitting on his ass, wearing only trousers and socks and belt, and that particular wide smile that means he’s genuinely amused. He’s covered in tattoos. Really bad ones. "You could blow me for a bit. Unless you don’t do that either.”

"Your tattoos are gross,” Arthur informs him, leaning forward and executing a controlled fall onto his knees. 

"Misspent youth,” Eames says. "Hello.” Arthur’s crawled up between his legs and started working on his belt. "Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

"Shut up,” Arthur says, getting Eames’s dick out and bending down.

Under ordinary circumstances he likes giving head--likes the rawness of it, the taste and smell, the simultaneous feeling of control and surrender. Under ordinary circumstances, he can easily get off that way, grinding into a mattress or jerking himself off with just a few quick pulls, whether or not the other guy comes.

These aren’t ordinary circumstances. He’s fairly drunk, pretty high--it should dull things. It really doesn’t. Eames smells musky and strong, like a long day of work, and at first there’s a salty, faintly sour undertaste. Soap, maybe. Arthur’s mouth waters. He works his tongue around the soft, wet tip, pulls almost all the way off and then slides back down, messy with spit. He’s got one hand wrapped around the shaft, slowly tugging. Nothing fancy. He’s not coordinated enough for anything fancy right now. And anyway, every time Eames grunts and thrusts his dick up into Arthur’s mouth, Arthur thinks frantically, _I’m going to come. I’m going to come on the carpet, right here._

He keeps his other hand wrapped around his own dick, not pulling but clamping down, trying to keep control. Eames touches the back of his head, lightly at first. When Arthur groans approval, he rakes his fingers through the hair at Arthur’s nape, then cups a firm hand over the back of his head, pressing. The gesture is both affectionate and exploitive, and it triggers a cascade of pure pornography in Arthur’s brain. For a second he has to pull off and turn his face away. Eames’s hand lifts.

"All right?”

"Fuck you,” Arthur gasps, compounding Somnacin in his head.

He goes back to it when he can, and Eames puts his hand back, and somehow, even when they find a rhythm and it starts to speed up, when Eames’s dick strains and jerks against his palate, Arthur finds a way to not come all over himself. Eames’s pubic hair is chestnut brown. His thighs are thick, his stomach is muscular and solid. He’s so totally Arthur’s type, heavy and short-waisted and barrel-chested, smelling of booze and cologne and sweat and hash--the type that makes Arthur’s brain stutter and his dick stiffen, the type he’s never allowed himself to date because guys like that aren’t for dating, they’re for fucking in back rooms. But this is Eames, who can handle a gun as well as a skin, who’s a very bad bet and a huge pain in the ass and Arthur doesn’t fucking care.

Eames sits up higher, his hand tightening on Arthur’s head. At the same time, there’s a minute lifting in his balls, an urgency in his thrusts. Eames’s hand clamps down on Arthur’s head. Arthur’s a little startled--he was expecting some kind of fair warning, a courtesy tap at least, but instead Eames makes a guttural groan, shoves his dick into Arthur’s mouth, and comes. 

Arthur chokes, swallows some, and spits the rest out onto Eames’s stomach. Eames is still groaning, muttering something, breathing hard. Slowly, he stops thrusting, then collapses back on the carpet. Arthur pulls off, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, and sits back on his knees. Eames’s eyes are closed, his chest rising and falling slowly.

Arthur surveys him, decides he’s a lost cause, and falls back against the armchair to jerk himself off. He’s just started, and knows it isn’t going to take more than a minute, when Eames raises his head.

"What are you doing?”

"Tithing,” Arthur says, closing his eyes. "Just give me a second.”

"Fuck no.” Eames sits up, wiping at the mess on his stomach. "Hang on, i’m not dead.”

"I’m fine,” Arthur says, but when Eames crawls over with a stupid grin on his face, he stops his hand. "Seriously, I don’t need much more.”

"Get on the bed,” Eames says. Arthur narrows his eyes. "It’s a very nice bed, we might as well use it.”

"I’m not--” Arthur pauses. "Don’t take this wrong, but this isn’t a love connection.”

"Just get on the bed.”

Arthur gathers himself, gets up, and sits on the edge of the bed.

"It’s a fucking bed,” Eames says. "Lie down.”

"I just want to get off,” Arthur says, hopelessly.

"Take off your shirt,” Eames says. He’s still wearing his trousers, and he swipes at his crotch ineffectually, then gives up and buttons without zipping. "Shirt off.”

Arthur’s dick twitches. It’s completely obvious, and Eames completely sees it. He smiles. Arthur frowns, but wrestles out of his shirt.

"Thank you,” Eames says in an extremely civil tone. He gets on the bed and crawls up on top of Arthur. His hands dent the mattress on either side of Arthur’s shoulders. From below, he’s even more blockish, more imposing. The tattoos are even worse. "Do you mind telling me just before you come?”

"You didn’t.”

"Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry. "It’s just, blokes like you, I like seeing you come on yourself.”

Arthur’s brain shorts out. His dick jerks against his palm. He closes his eyes, licks his lips, and manages to say, "Blokes like me?”

"Clean-chested,” Eames says, laying his fingers on Arthur’s pectoral. "Spunk on skin, it’s a kink. But don’t worry if you don’t want to.”

"No,” Arthur says. "I can do that.”

"Thanks,” Eames says, and starts sucking Arthur’s dick.

It’s embarrassing, how fast it goes. Once Eames knocks Arthur’s hand away from the base of his dick, there are pretty much no brakes left. Arthur grabs the sheets, writhes, makes humiliating inarticulate sounds. Eames holds him down by the hips, digging his thumbs into Arthur’s skin. Then he lays a heavy forearm across his lower belly to pin him in place, working messily and noisily with his hot wet fucking ridiculous mouth, and that’s it. Arthur’s hamstrings go rigid, his hips start thrusting short and sharp.

"Fuck, I’m--” He reaches down blindly but Eames is already off, still crouched close over him, jerking him with one hand. Arthur comes harder than he’s come in months. Maybe longer. It seems to last an insanely long time, and when it’s over his stomach and chest are slippery with come. There’s come dripping from his chin.

He lies there gasping, feeling like he’s been knocked out of his shell. His muscles are weak, trembling. Eames, he realizes, is surfacing. Eames. _Oh Jesus_ , Arthur thinks weakly, without much meaning. _Oh Jesus, I fucked Eames._

For just the barest of seconds, he feels like weeping.

Then Eames collapses on the bed beside him, hot and bulky and not very fresh-smelling. Their bodies touch, side by side.

"Thanks,” Eames says. "That was fantastic.”

"You’re welcome,” Arthur says. He doesn’t feel like thanking Eames back. He wipes his chin.

They lie there for a couple of minutes, then Eames rolls off the bed and goes away. Arthur tries to put his head back together. The job is shot. He has to...what does he have to do? Clear out the warehouse. Distribute the fees, see if he can get a line on any other jobs for Elliott and Liliane, as a make-up for the time lost on this one. He has to find the right tone with the client. Pissed off but professional. His jaw aches from sucking Eames’s dick. 

_I fucked Eames_ , he thinks again, slowly draping one arm across his closed eyes.

"Here.” He opens his eyes and finds Eames standing beside him, holding out a damp washcloth. "Careful, it’s hot.”

Arthur props himself on an elbow and takes the cloth. He wipes himself off while Eames opens the bottle of water on the nightstand and drinks. When Arthur tosses the cloth away into the sheets, Eames holds the bottle out. 

"Thanks.” Arthur drinks. His body feels warm and loose, and somehow the lost job doesn’t seem to matter that much. It will, he knows, tomorrow. But right now, even while he’s composing his to-do list, he doesn’t feel too bad about it. He doesn’t even feel too bad about fucking Eames.

Eames doesn’t seem to feel bad about fucking him, either. He raises his arms in a giant, groaning stretch, and something in his chest releases a sharp crack. When he exhales it’s with relief. "Telly?” he says, looking around for the remote.

Any other time, Arthur would already be in the bathroom, cleaning up. Getting ready to head out the door, after establishing a clear understanding about any kind of follow-up, i.e., none. Right now, he reaches behind his head for a pillow, bunches it up, and lies back. 

"Sure, what the hell.”

Eames takes forever to find the remote, shuffling around the room barefoot in an inefficient zigzag pattern. Arthur lies watching him, amused. Like a gorilla, Eames seems to have no personal modesty. He scratches himself absently, adjusts his trousers with a grimace, rubs his knuckles over his stubbled jaw. In the low light, his tattoos don’t look so bad. 

Finally he finds the thing, and channel-surfing at high speed while he walks backward toward the bed. Arthur shoves over to make room.

"What is your national obsession with storage lockers?” Eames asks, sitting down with his back against the headboard. Arthur shrugs.

There are a million channels and of course there’s nothing on. Arthur’s eyelids grow heavy while the images flick past. They’re lying close enough that he can feel heat from Eames’s body. If he turned his head he could examine the bad, probably Latin, text tattooed across Eames’s midriff.

"You can stay,” Eames says, frowning at the remote. "And you can take your trousers off if you want. I don’t mind.”

"Thanks.” Arthur lets one hand fall across his stomach, lazily scratching. After a couple of minutes he murmurs, "I could murder a bag of Doritos.”

"Some in the minibar, I bet,” Eames says. Then he looks down at Arthur’s hand. "That where you got stabbed?” 

Arthur lifts his head and looks down at his stomach, at the two thick, shiny pink-white seams that run horizontally across his right side. One’s a few inches long, the other is just a bit shorter. He forgets about them. 

"Yeah.” He drops his head again, expecting Eames to go back to the television. But Eames turns and bends over him, putting a finger on the bigger scar and gently testing it. It doesn’t hurt but it feels unexpectedly intimate, and for a second or two Arthur considers pushing him away. He doesn’t. Eames prods the smaller scar and makes a _hm_ sound in his throat. Then he sits up and lifts his right arm, stretching the skin over his side.

"There’s mine.” He points, so Arthur looks. There’s a thin silver band between Eames’s ribs, as light as a string. It’s older than Arthur’s, and looks like it was stitched up better. 

"I thought you got stabbed twice,” Arthur says, leaning back on his elbow. 

"The other one’s under my hair.”

"You were stabbed in the head?”

"She was really fed up. And she only skinned me, really. Look.” Eames tips his head down and parts his hair. Arthur sits up and looks. There’s a small patch of white scar tissue near the crown of Eames’s head.

"That explains a lot,” Arthur says, settling back down.

"Yours looks pretty bad.”

"I got lucky.”

"Could have lost more than just a nice waistcoat.”

Eames is still gazing down at him, as if he cares that Arthur almost died in a brawl four years ago. They’d barely even met at that point, Arthur thinks. And anyway, they don’t even like each other.

"I got lucky,” he says again. 

Eames says _hm_ and turns back to the television. They both sink into silence. Finally, as Arthur’s eyelids are starting to fall again, Eames sighs and clicks the television off, then heads for the bathroom. "I’m going to sleep.”

"Okay.” Arthur hauls himself up to sitting. His shirt is crumpled at the foot of the bed, turned half inside out. He’s lost his socks. The hash has mostly worn off and he’s getting a low, throbbing dehydration headache. 

When Eames emerges a couple of minutes later, Arthur’s sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his second shoe. He’s got everything else back on, has scraped his hair back as well as he can, made sure he has his wallet and keys. 

"Not staying?” Eames says, leaning in the bathroom doorway. Arthur looks up at him, still tying his shoelace. 

"We’re not dating,” he says. "You know that, right?”

Eames’s face registers surprise. "Of course not.”

"Good.” It’s a relief, Arthur tells himself, standing up. Maybe also a little insulting, that Eames was so obviously right there with him--but then, that goes both ways. "I’m not trying to be a dick. This was...great. I mean, it was stupid, obviously. For both of us. But...yeah.” 

Eames is just standing there, watching him. Arthur shuts his mouth and smiles.

"Sorry,” he says. "And..thanks.”

Eames smiles back, and for just a moment Arthur considers sitting back down on the bed, toeing off his shoes, and lying back. Eames said he could stay. It’s not like he has anything pressing to do tonight. 

But even through the fog in his brain he knows that’s a bad idea. And that tomorrow morning it will probably seem like a totally horrific one.

Eames is still standing there, watching him with a mild smile. Arthur scratches the back of his head and looks around once more, making sure he has everything.

"Okay,” he says, and starts for the door. As he passes, Eames reaches out. Arthur hesitates, but Eames is just flattening his collar for him. He pats Arthur’s shoulder in a friendly way.

"Thanks.”

"You’re welcome.” Eames crosses his arms over his bare chest, tucking his hands in his armpits. "Now, if we should happen to work together again sometime, we might...”

"Not a good idea.”

"It wasn’t a good idea tonight either. But I enjoyed it.”

"Yeah, well...” Arthur knows what he should say, something about maintaining a working relationship and not jeopardizing their reputations and not acting like total fucking idiots. 

But it all seems sort of useless now. He just sucked Eames’s dick, and liked it. It would be pretty cowardly to try to deny that now. 

"We’re not dating,” he says again, since they’ve already agreed on that. He doesn’t say anything about working together in future. Sooner or later they probably will.

"You’ll call in the morning,” Eames says. "When you know the distribution.” Arthur nods. "I’ll just head to the airport, then.”

"Do you want any of your stuff?”

"No, shred it.”

Arthur hesitates another moment, wondering if Eames is going to try to kiss him. They’ve just said they’re not dating, and anyway, the sex was heat-of-the-moment stuff. It wouldn’t make sense to kiss now, when Arthur’s got his clothes back on and they’re talking business. Still. He has a flash of Eames’s tongue in his mouth, his taste of smoke and booze.

Eames doesn’t try to kiss him. 

Arthur opens the door, then turns back. "What about your laptop?”

"Chuck it.” Eames’s tone is mild. "I hate those things.”

Arthur nods, and then there’s really nothing else to do. Eames is just standing there looking at him. So he leaves.

 

He doesn’t go back to his hotel room. As soon as he gets his car back from the valet he’s wide awake, and can’t imagine anything worse than lying alone on the wide bed, staring at the ceiling. He drives to a bar, a place that’s quiet and nearly empty, and sits scrolling through work emails on his phone. 

There’s one from Liliane, short and possibly pissed-off, saying she’ll come in tomorrow to break down the network. A few loose ends from a recent job, a query from Paul about a job in St Louis. He sends a few replies, makes a few mental notes to follow up with numbers and dates. Then he closes his email and sits staring at the desktop for a minute or two before opening up text.

 _childhood story_ , he types quickly. _older brother "borrowed” stepdad’s car for late-night movie. left me in car, went into store. church member saw him, took him home. (stepdad deacon.) i waited 3 hours in parking lot, then walked. car towed. deacon pissed._

he reads it over with his thumb over the delete key. It’s not a very good story, not as good as he’d thought it was before he typed it out. He’s always thought it was funny, kept it in the slot in his head under "amusing kid bullshit,” but now it seems sort of pathetic. It had been five miles, at night, on mostly unlit rural roads, and when he finally got home the porch light was out and the door was locked. He tapped at the bedroom window but got no answer. He was too angry and scared to knock on the door. Sometime just before dawn, Philip climbed out the basement window with a key and let him in. They mowed lawns for the rest of the summer to pay off the towing fee.

He almost presses delete, then thinks _fuck it_ , and hits send instead. Then he kills the phone and drains his beer, signalling for the bill. 

The screen lights up before he’s finished putting down his money. 

_howe old eere you?_

Arthur slides his thumb over the phone’s slick edge. Eames is a bad typist. He’s also a forge and a liar. He likes to get inside people’s heads because he can usually find something to use. 

But this is just a stupid kid story.

 _14_ , he types. If Eames replies again, he thinks, he’ll just ignore it. He doesn’t want this to turn into a big conversation.

He turns the phone completely off on the way back to the hotel, and stick it on the charger. He takes a hot shower, which feels incredible. There’s a semicircular bite mark on his inner thigh, which he doesn’t remember getting. In the bathroom mirror, his face looks puffy and tired.

He sets up a wake-up call for six o’clock, gets into bed, and lies staring up into the darkness. He fucked Eames. It seems unreal now. Someone else must have done it.

The next morning, shaved and dressed and packed, he switches his phone on. A text appears on the screen. 

_deecon soundsd like a twit. lovelt having you._

Arthur smiles slightly, despite himself, and deletes the text. Another one springs up in its place from the queue.

_have tatoo story, will trade for stoy about ??_

Arthur reads it over a couple of times, then deletes it with a deliberate thumb on the screen. He doesn’t want this to turn into a big conversation, a big thing. They’re not dating. They’re not going to date. At the most, they’ll meet occasionally through work, fuck, and move on. That’s more than enough.

But as he’s working his way through the warehouse, shredding files with his tie tucked into his shirt and his sleeves rolled to his elbows, he thinks about it. 

"What are you smiling about?” Liliane grouses, from where she’s crouched over a hard drive with a power drill in her hand. "You should be pissed off right now. You should be depressed. Like me.”

"I am,” he says.

She starts drilling holes through the hard drive, the whine filling the air. He goes to Eames’s desk, where the new laptop and the old beast-monster are still sitting on top of a pile of folders. He picks the monster up, hefts its ridiculous weight, studies its ugly case. The drill whines behind him. 

"I should do those too,” Liliane calls, when she puts the drill down. "Both of them. Just in case.” He turns to look at her, holding up the brick.

"I thought it never went on the network.”

"It didn’t. But it’s a plague-bed of viruses. It’s totally unusable.”

He watches her drill a couple more holes in the drive she’s working on--she’s thorough. Then he turns and puts the old laptop back on the table. He hands her the new one. "The other one’s not our problem.”

Liliane shrugs and starts drilling. Arthur clears the rest of Eames’s folders off the table with a single swipe. When he leaves the warehouse an hour later, the laptop stays.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started out as a random, useless little snippet about Eames being bad with computers. I don't know why. It just seemed sort of hilarious to think of him fucking up a perfectly good machine through a combination of impatience, indifference, and ineptitude. And then dumping it on some poor long-suffering IT consultant, who would open it up in good faith and whose face would promptly melt off like a Nazi opening the Ark of the Covenant, at the sheer magnitude of the fucked-upness. Like, _Why is your screen magenta, with teal text? Why is there no task bar anymore? What's that grinding noise?_ And then Arthur, who's just trying to get the goddamn job done on time and under budget, has to call on the principles of transcendental meditation to keep from punching Eames in the back of the head.
> 
> Anyway, that's sort of why this exists.* But somewhere along the way it grew up and got a driver's license and a sex life, and of course some melancholy. Because I can't write past 2,000 words without melancholy.
> 
> I should note here that I am not an IT professional, and that most of the shit Eames does is stuff I would probably also do. So, please do not be reconfiguring your local area network based on any info gleaned from this story.
> 
> And finally, of course, it's hard drive amnesty. Hooray for posting stuff that collects under the couch! At least in this one they take their clothes (mostly) off?
> 
>  
> 
> *Also as a little love letter to Jen and Moss and Roy, hence title. Which is otherwise not very a propos, I know.


End file.
